The Symbols
by Moxie2
Summary: With no where else to go, Miranda turns to Gordo for comfort. COMPLETE! Ch. 6 and 7: Years overdue: Gordo fights for Miranda.
1. The Bird

Title: The Symbols  

Author: Moxie

Disclaimer: Is it really necessary.

Summary: Miranda's home life, the way I've shaped it up. 

Author's note: I'd really appreciate some feedback on this b/c I've really only seen on episode of "Lizzie McGuire" and I'm presumptuous to assume this is how they are, but if I made any mistakes, I'd like to know what they are. 

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Round and round, in and out. Round and round. 

My eyes are glued to the comforter on the bed. My mom's favorite one, sprawled across my bed. My body was set on top of it, my hands out in front of me. I stared hard at the faint swirls of flowers dancing around the petals. I touched the swirls with the tips of my index finger and followed them in their pattern. 

Round and round, in and out. Round-

The flowers weren't helping. It had become harder to ignore them. I could hear him yelling. His voice was trembling, but filled with anger: for her. She was sobbing, trying vainly to yell back. I traced the swirls faster. She sobbed louder, and my heart wrenched. The swirls are blotches now and my traces of easy lines are jagged and zigzagged.  One more jagged line was traced when I heard the shatter of sharp glass below me. I was blinking fast, concentrating on the swirls. There were vibrations from the screams. My head was swimming. Blindly grasping for the swirls. 

Zoom and out, round and in. 

Out.

She screamed and I stopped blinking. It wasn't a yell-a cry-a sob. She screamed and there were no more vibrations. There was no more yelling. There were no more tears. I drew back my hand from the sheet like it suddenly blazed with a heat I couldn't handle. I got up from the comforter. I turned from the swirls and slowly opened my bedroom door, heading down the hall and down the stairs, needing to see why there were no more sounds. I headed for the first step on the top when I heard a slam thunder through the house and my feet when faster. I called for them but there was only silence. I reached the bottom step and I heard it. There was the sobbing. I saw it. There was the broken glass: the carved bird. It lay there broken and shattered by the argument, waiting for an end in the silence, for some motion. By it she sat. My mother huddled on the floor alone by the bird that once proclaimed their love. 

"Mom…" My voice was raspy and dry. 

She slowly met my eyes. Her eyes were red rimmed and tears still lingered in them, giving her eyes a melancholy glow. She seemed lost looking up at me with no hope in her brown orbs. She looked pale and forgotten, but she forced a smile. "Go back up stairs, Miranda." 

I shook my head. "Mom…" She cast her eyes back down and slowly took herself from the floor. I called her again and she ignored me and continued upstairs. 

I looked back at the bird and realized all my blinking hadn't helped much. The tears from eyes spilled over the rims and I sank down by the bird and waited. 

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	2. Images

II

Images

I don't know how long I waited for the feelings to calm, and for the silence to be interrupted, but the sun had lit the sky a bright orange red that pushed through the windows of the house by the time I clutched onto the wall and pulled myself up like my mother had done. One hand remained on the floor and I jerked it at the sudden light hitting my eyes. I fell by the wall and looked down at my hand. A thin piece of glass had bored itself into my palm. I blew on it and prodded it, ignoring the blood that was beginning to grow and thick and watchful. New tears formed over the dried paths of the old and I could hear my heartbeat in my ears as the glass startled my nerves. I drew my hand back and pressed my back against the wall.

I turned my head to the bird and crouched before standing up and walking into the kitchen. I cleaned the glass from my palm and washed the warm blood from my stained hand. I reached under the sink reaching for the dustpan and the small broom to sweep away the bird, but stopped myself. They would sweep their own ashes. I dabbed a little harder at the small point of blood left on my palm before grabbing my jacket and heading out the door. Two would leave tonight. 

I didn't want to be there. I couldn't stay knowing he had hit her. I couldn't live with the thought of him hurting her. Leaving her with a face red with his doing. She had made it easy for me, though. She had turned me away first. 

I pulled my coat closer to me, trying to shield of the cold that struck my face as I walked out the door and off the porch. The tears I had forgotten whipped across my face, blowing from it with ease. 

I knew she loved him. I loved him. Why wasn't that enough? If I asked him not to go, would he stay? Did I matter? Could I do anything? I knew the answer to all those questions. We all did and it killed me. 

Though they had never argued like _this_, though he had never hit her, they had _argued_ and she would retreat to her room not speaking until he got home. That was my only place to go. That was my only shelter. I couldn't go back there.

Lizzie. Had to laugh at that thought of going to Lizzie's. She was quite content with the way things were. Ethan Craft had finally bowed down to her blonde greatness and she had subjected herself to him, which ultimately left our relationship in shambles. She didn't mind being known as "Ethan's girlfriend". The title earned her a friendship with Kate who had conversations with her about Ethan's charms and looks. Slowly Gordo and I were pushed out of her frame of mind. There were no more meetings at Digital Bean, or three-way conversations of the phone. Gordo and I were never as close as Lizzie and Gordo. She was the glue that held us together as friends and I more than regretted that now.

I could only stare at the door, standing on the bottom step with my hands dug deep into my pockets. I walked onto the porch and hovered a finger, threatening the doorbell.

I stood there, listening to the silence of the neighborhood: vacant streets, parked cars, forgotten friends. I turned from the door and stared long to the end of the block. The street was filled with the sound of the wind's whistle, but the thought of going back and seeing my mother fallen apart and clutching her bed sheets seemed worse than being bitten by the wind. I hurried down the steps and sped up my walking, images of my mother in my mind. He was yelling at her and suddenly I began shaking as my face etched in before my mother's. His eyes were burning with rage and I shriveled into a ball as he expressed his anger. He was yelling about money. He was yelling about my mother. He was yelling about me. His eyes were focused and he took no breath to stop, as I begged. I was dreaming again. It was the same scene at night, the one come to call when I closed my eyes. He turned from me, and I begged him not to leave and that thundering sound I had heard earlier vibrated from the walls as he closed the door. "Please don't go. Daddy don't leave-" 

My eyes snapped open with a shudder. Something stood in front of me, feet away, staring: a blotch in the mist. I blinked, realizing I hadn't done it since my eyes had come open. He moved, but I stood still. Gordo. 

I could feel cool tears wisp across my nose as I stared back, not daring to blink; not wanting to have him disappear before me as quickly as Lizzie had. 

He stopped in front of me, but I expected him to walk right through me. 

"Hey." I could barely move my lips to greet him. He stood there and for a moment and I could swear he was counting on me to meet at the Digital Bean. "What are you doing here?" I croaked out disbelieving. He shrugged. When he shrugged I noticed how much he had changed. We stood an eye-to-eye distance, just barely. He had grown taller than me. His eyes were pug as if worn out from looking down. His lips were tight and pursed. His hair looked uncut, but not growing, making it the only thing that appeared unchanged. "Walking." 

I could smell the cold ash on him, like cigarettes. 

"I haven't seen you in a long time." 

"Yeah…." 

"Have you seen Lizzie?" He hadn't moved, barely blinked since he approached me, but his brow twitched nervously now as he brought up her name. 

"No.  A question better directed to Ethan or Kate." 

"That is her new crowd," he agreed, sounding bitterer than I would've imagined.  

"You smoke." I don't know where it came from, but at the same time it made me feel stupid for stating something he more than new, but did.  

 "It passes the time." I cast my eyes to my feet. The silence was awkward, filled with tension and I knew whatever comfort there was had gone. 

"How are things with you?"  He asked making me look up at him. 

"Pretty good." 

"You've changed," he said matter-of-factly.

"So have you."

"No more than Lizzie." He sighed. "Goodbye, Miranda." 

 He turned from me and walked slowly down the sidewalk. I turned to and looked back down the block I had looked on at on Lizzie's porch and turned sharply back around to see Gordo still retreating into the mist at the end of the walk. I sighed and turned home. 

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I closed the door behind me and stepped over the crystal bird still lain across the floor. I passed the family portrait by the door and smiled to myself. My parents stood by one another, smiling loyally with one another and I stood in between. We were a family. There were friends. There was no silence. 

I continued to my room and passed the locked door of my mother's room. I walked into my bedroom and closed the door behind me. I threw my jacket on the empty chair in front of the computer and sat down on my bed staring down at my palm.  I eased my head back on the pillow and waited for him to come home. 

Later that night he finally came in and I heard my mother's door open. I reached for mine and followed distantly to the top of the staircase. She went down alone and I stood there unnoticed. She walked over to him and he turned away from her. He hung his coat on the rack by the door and shrugged off her hand. "Henry…" She prodded. 

"Don't touch me, Mary Anne."  He said this dryly, harshly and peering into her. 

"Henry, please."  She reached for him and he slapped her hand away. "Don't touch me, Mary Anne." 

"Why are you doing this?" She asked meekly. 

"You want to know why I'm doing this, Mary Anne, because I don't want your filthy hands on me! That's why!" They both looked ready to burst: from rage and sadness. Her lips quivered and his entire body trembled. She shook her head. "Henry, I didn't mean to."  He continued yelling and she began to sob, still reaching for him. 

"Stop it." I whispered, to myself. It went on and I rushed down the steps until a stood in front of both of them. "Stop it!"  I screamed it, ready to cry. He was holding her wrist and she stopped trying to reach for him. He threw her wrist down and she pursed her lips.

 "Go back up stairs, Sweetie," she told me. I shook my head. "What good will that do? I hear you. I know you fight about me!"

"This has nothing to do with you-"

"It has to do with everything. Always money- always me! I'll try harder. I will." My eyes were pleading with my father. "She loves you."  

His eyes were still cold and unyielding and he turned to my mother. "Tell her what you did, Mary Anne. Go ahead, tell her," he said bitterly. I looked at her and she shook her head. "Henry, please…" 

"Stop it! Stop pleading with me!" He faced me. "Your whore of a mother cheated on me. Did you know that?" She what? "He's practically your age!" His bitter laughter filled the house.

"Please don't be angry at me…."

All I could say was, "How could you?"

"Miranda, I'm so sorry." I turned to find him pulling on his coat. "Don't go. I know she hurt you, but please don't go!"  He headed for the door, but stopped and turned to look back at us. 

"She took him to our house, Miranda," he told me in his familiar tone of voice. "She took him into our house and screwed him!" He walked across the living room. "Was it over here? Or was it on the couch? Or right here, Mary Anne?"  He yelled so loudly, so powerfully, I began to cry like my mother. 

He calmed and returned to us. "Why, Mary Anne? Can you please just answer that."  I've never seen him cry but he cried now freely, and with desperation.

"You were always working, Henry, and when you did come home, I got nothing from you. I was you _wife_. For god sakes, you loved Miranda more than _me_!" 

"Jesus Christ, Mary Anne! She's our daughter!"

"I was you wife!"  

I just stood there as they stared hard at one another, feeling as I did in the cold, standing there with Gordo in the uncomfortable silence. 

I watched as my father ran a hand through his hair and sighed at his wife before finally opening the door and closing it with a click that was barely heard at all.

She turned to me and walked into the kitchen, coming back with a dustpan and the small broom. 

I hastened towards the door and headed out ignoring the cold thrashing my body. Quick steps turned into sprints. Sprints changed to running and I raced down the sidewalk running away from the crying that followed me out the door. 

I stopped, winded and troubled with my stomach lurching inside of me and slouched down on the step behind me, sobbing like my mother had done.

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It sucks. I know this, but for some weird reason, I can't stop writing it.


	3. When Gordo Laughed

III 

**When Gordo Laughed**

I wrapped my arms more tightly around myself and rocked, numbing myself with the cold. I stood and turned my back to the street, looking up at the door on the house. I willed myself to walk up those steps and bang the knocker, finding it almost as difficult as knocking on Lizzie's door. Silence. I waited impatiently kicking at the ledge in front of the door. I pulled my fists into my sleeves and folded my arms, waiting. Silence. "Please…" Begging had become a part of me… but I waited. I waited for an answer. I turned my back to the street and down the steps. "Fabulous." 

The wind whistled, whirling around my ear and I swatted the empty space with a sleeve. 

"Miranda?" I turned to see Gordo standing in the doorframe of his house. I walked up the steps again and stood in front of him, clenching my teeth to stop their chattering. The wind stopped its howl long enough for me to unclench them. "Gordo…I." Chatter. He stood there, patient. I think he's being patient anyway. His eyes were fixed on me, but he gave me the look he gave by Lizzie's house. The one that gave me the impression he was looking right through me. It only made me colder. I drew my lips in for a minute before speaking again. "I ne- need to stay here." 

"What?" He looked like he cared now. Chatter.

"F-for a lit-tle wh-while."  He looked at me for a long time. Scrutinizing in his usual _Gordo_ way, trying to figure out whether or not I was as serious as I looked. Meanwhile, my teeth hadn't stopped chattering and I was beginning to think he would leave me on the porch to develop hypothermia while he just _stared_. He moved to the side not taking his eyes off me, but I suddenly felt solid again. I stepped in and wasn't surprised at the change in his house. Nothing was the same. 

The room was dim and only the TV and one lamp in the corner offered any kind of light to the room. There was less furniture, some corners empty of what used to be sofas or tables or even collectors items of the "Gordon family".  

He closed the door behind me and walked into the living room where I followed. He sat by me on the couch. "Why do you need to stay here?"  It was my turn to scrutinize. Gordo seemed to be forever changing. He wasn't the same as when I had seen him in the cold, but like who I'd seen stepping inside. He reminded of someone welcomed back to his religion after committing a heresy never thought forgivable. 

"I'm having a lot of problems at home."  His brows were knitted. "What kind of problems?"  There was a pause. "My parents are having some disagreements." I wish I could've kept up this naïve streak when I was swirling the colors on my bedspread. 

"Is it serious?" 

I slowly nodded. "I think so."  I felt like coughing, "understatement". All he found to say was, "Oh." 

"What were you doing out there today?" 

"Waiting for you to open your door."

He shook his head. "No. Before. When I first saw you." 

"Walking." 

He smirked and laid his head back on the head of the couch. "Why's there always time to walk when you've got problems? Doesn't help, you know. Just makes you think more and eventually you conjure up new issues in your brain." 

"What was your walk about?" 

"Nothing, really. Just me being pathetic."  There was silence for a minute, giving us more room for thought. 

"I know you want her to love you."  His head snapped to look at me. "What?" 

"You can't make her." 

He sat back, softening. "I know."

"No matter how much you wished your love would make her stay." I was hitting one hand with the other now. Back to palm. There was another silence before we started talking again. 

"Your parents always seemed to get along so well." 

I had to smile bitterly at his comment. "After a while they started fighting and then it got worse." 

"Where're your parents now?" 

 "Well, my mom's at home and probably won't be moving for a while." I lifted my eyes from my hands and focused on him. "He's gone, you know." 

He almost did a double take. "Gone?" 

"He left. Walked out." I went back to my hands. "Not that I blame him."

I couldn't see the look on his face but I could hear the shock in his voice. "What does your mom think about it?" 

"Doesn't matter. She has someone else to finger her."  I was struggling with voice as it broke and cheated tears welled in my eyes. 

"Miranda…." He placed a hand on my shoulder like it was supposed to have some sort of effect on me. 

"She cheated on him, Gordo." I was looking far more pathetic than he ever could've felt. She brought him home and slept with him in my _their_ _bed_!" Pathetic turned into angry. "Then she blames _me_!" I was standing up walking around like some enraged lunatic. "She blames _me_ for what _she_ did to _him_! What she did to _me_! She blames me and I don't understand why!" I could barely see his face anymore through the blinding tears in my eyes. "Why would she do that…? Why?"  I could barely breathe with the tears becoming an issue in my throat. "Why would she do that?" My words were drowning out in my ear and I ran two hands through my hair before I felt him embrace me. We were both reverted.  

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I felt like I was at the wall in the kitchen while I waiting for my mom to come back downstairs and say she was sorry. I wanted so much for her to say she was sorry. I could care less if she said it to me…as long as he heard it and it came to mean something. 

I slowly untangled myself from him. It felt painful to do: physical taxing. I looked up at him and smiled at me with the same pug eyes. I sat up from the couch where we had moved sometime from my outburst to my tears stopping. I moved back a little and searched for words coming out with, "Sorry."  

He snickered. "For what?" 

"For my freakish outburst!" 

He bent back. "Okay, now you're freaking me out. Next time, just suck it up." I smiled as his pug eyes twinkled, only to look down again. They came back up with that same projecting brow and I suddenly had to ask. "Gordo, what happened to you?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"You've changed."

"We've all changed, Miranda. Lizzie's popular. Best friends with Kate, dating Ethan," he gave this look of amused amazement when he mused with a wide grin, "wearing Kate's clothes." 

"Gordo!"  He shrugged a little giving me a look screaming, "What do you want from me?" Then he got somber. "You've changed. Crying on sidewalks, having nervous breakdowns in my living room." A smile. A pause. 

"What about you, Gordo?" 

"I've gotten taller. Hang by myself, and still I have no yearn to learn what it means to be a man. I've done pretty damn good." 

"That why you smoke?" 

"I don't make movies anymore."

"But Gordo…that was your passion." He snickered again and I cringed. "Don't be naïve, Miranda. I wouldn't have made it. I had chances before. The documentary, for one and I blew _that_." 

"Is that what you tell yourself now?" 

"No, Miranda, that's what _other people_ tell _me_."

"Since when?" It came out like a hiss. Who would tell him that?

"Since a whole lot of things." He ran a hand through his stagnant hair. "Since Lizzie, since you. Things changed, I told you that. No one really believed in me after you." I wanted to tell him that wasn't true, but things were different. I didn't know Gordo. What right did I have to tell him there were others who believed in him? 

"So you started up with cigarettes instead?" The veils of skin came over his eyes even further and I heard him chuckle under his breath. "What else are you smoking, Gordo?" The chuckle got louder and he started laughing. It was bitter like my father's and nearly as loud. He finally returned his eyes to me when he managed to sober up. "I smoke everything, Miranda. My room's a makeshift crack house," he replied staring down at me with a hint of amusement and delirium. 

"Gordo…." His head eased on the head on the couch and he smiled wearily. "You're full of so many expressions. You manage to say my name in so many different ways. I could listen to you say my name for hours. You've probably said my name about thirteen times since you got here. Gordo- Gordo- Gordo" He was shifting his face, lifting and raising his voice. Was he high right now? Was I spilling my guts to someone on pot? How had the conversation come to this point?

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Don't know where the story's going. Don't ask.


	4. She Turns

IV: She Turns

Suddenly he stopped mimicking and burst out laughing again.  There wasn't a trace of my father in him now.  It was… the type of laugh Gordo used to get while watching Ernie annoy Bert on Sesame Street. The kind of laugh that was infectious, but obnoxious. 

"Why are you laughing?" He was shaking while trying to stop laughing. "You…should see your face!" He burst out laughing again and a huge snorting sound came from his nose and I found myself smiling at him, but wiped it off. "It's not funny Gordo!"  He sobered a little and simply smiled. "Makeshift crack house, Miranda?" I just looked at him. "I was kidding. It was a joke!"

"I knew that." 

"No you didn't." 

Before I could repeat myself he placed his hand over my mouth. "We're different now so whatever comes out of my mouth you would believe. I know that. I'm sorry. But I'm not a crack head, Miranda." He said it with seriousness, but that smirk was still playing on his lips as he dropped his hand. I rolled my eyes at him and sat back on the couch. I was annoyed, stupidly relieved, definitely annoyed. We sat there for a little while before I reran how the crack head conversation started. I drooped my head to the right to look at him. 

"Who told you that you were no good?"  He moved his head to look at me now, and I looked under the veils to see the clouded orbs underneath them. He didn't look ready to laugh- there was no twinkle. They looked troubled. 

"It's not important." 

"Of course it is. What even makes you so sure you can trust this person?" 

"Experience." 

"Gordo, come on," I prodded, " I cried in front of you." He turned to stare at the TV while it broadcasted an ad for the Ab Roller. 

"That was your choice. I already told you to suck it up." 

I sighed at him and looked over to the table by my end of the couch. The color of the wood had dulled like the light in the living room. There was an unlit lamp in the center of it that sat on a crème colored doily. I rubbed the back of a frame that lay face down on the table. I picked it up, looking at the three people looking back out from the frame. They sat on a park bench wide eyed and smiling at the camera. It reminded me of my family portrait on the wall. I picked up the frame in my hands and looked thoughtfully at the Gordons.

I looked back to Gordo who still stared fixedly at a George Forman infomercial. "How are your parents?"

"Still divorced." 

"Better off than mine?" 

"I wouldn't go that far. Can't really speak for either of them. Don't see them a lot." I raised a brow and he caught the questioning look. Gordo: Independent landowner. "I haven't heard anything from my dad: moved to lower Detroit. They aren't the best of friends right now and the former Mrs. Gordon has to work for her alimony. Really, I'm no better off than you." I put the frame back on the table: the three people looking down into the dust. Another lengthy silence forms long beeps in my ears. 

"Are you going to go home?" I hadn't thought about going home, or anything past the next four seconds. "I guess I have to." 

"I'm going with you." 

"To my house?" 

He shrugged. "Hey, there's more to life than empty houses," said the boy who sits alone in his living room day in and day out-or made it look that way.

"What about your mom?" 

"What about my mom?" I had nothing to say to that.

We waited a while. I'm not sure why, but we did, and sat on his couch counting "Foreman Grill" commercials.

"Thirty-five. Maybe _I_ should start a grill empire."

"Maybe. Couldn't be much worse than your idea for the trash empire." 

"_Garbage_ Empire." 

"Oh, I'm sorry your Holy Crap Lord. Who knows, maybe you _too_ can shave your head."   

"The benefits!" It went on like this longer than the infomercials and we got to know each other again and really, not much had changed. We were more cynical, taller- tired, but not much had changed.

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Gordo looked at the journey to my house as a venture. The change kept him going. I guess he wanted to see how things had changed on the inside of someone else's house. 

I unlocked the door of the house and pushed it open with Gordo now behind me. I paused a little and Gordo wound around me with wrinkled brows then he caught the same sight I did. My mom had finally come down. Granted, she looked better than she had in days. The sudden transformation from tattered robes and tear-stained cheeks to a journey to the other end of her closet and a smile, however faint, had been shock enough, but here on her right hand side sat Mrs. McGuire. The eyed us as we came across the step and into the house. 

"Miranda, you're back. Gordo…hello. I felt Gordo lean into my back and heard him whisper softly, "Exaggerate a little?"  I moved up to the counter as he went to greet the two women. 

"Mrs. McGuire, what are you doing here?" 

"I came here for your parents." 

"What?" 

"Mary Anne told me about what's been going on. I've just come to refer you to a counseling." 

"That's great…I- wait- refer _me_?" 

"Of course," she obviously caught the look of extreme shock I was throwing her. "Miranda…I know I haven't seen you in a while since you and Lizzie parted ways, but a broken friendship isn't going to condone your behavior. You've torn this family apart. From what I heard, I'm glad your mother called when she did."

All I could do was stare at her as my mother sat with a look of concern; hands lay on top of one another as she laid her brown eyes on me. 

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	5. 1/4 of a Chapter

V

¼ of a Chapter 

I could feel Gordo's eyes burning into me. I know he was scrutinizing me, recalling all that I had told him before: thinking I had lied. 

"You're the liar." It came out as a hiss that couldn't be helped.

"Miranda!" Mrs. McGuire was looking passed her spectacles, with shock twisting her face.

"This is for the best, Miranda," answered the folding hands.

"You made him leave!" 

"Miranda!" The stranger grabbed my arm and tipped her glasses towards the tip of her nose to get a better look into my eyes. "Miranda, your mother is trying to help you. Fits aren't going to make anything better- neither is lying."  

I just stared at her, my wrist going limp in her hand. My eyes were getting hot and my stomach boiled uncomfortably. I looked over to Gordo who stood there still scrutinizing, not "compromising authority". 

"What'd she tell you?" 

"The truth," went the hands. 

"Mary Anne called me and told me about how you've lied to your father. How could you do that to them Miranda? Your own parents…."

"I didn't-"

"Replacing her amphetamines. Making her look like a liar to her own husband." She drew her hand from my wrist and went through her neatly organized bag for half of a second. Each millisecond throbbed in my ears. "After everything was told to me, I couldn't leave it to weekly counseling." She drew out a white Vista card. "I think for your benefit and for your parents- at least while you're away-"

"Away?" 

"That you should be committed."

It was all streaming through my head now: the crying, the bird, the shreds, the walking, the waiting, his leaving, moments with Gordo, opening the front door- it all came back. I knew what he was thinking. He thought I was lying. He had his own streaming images: in the cold- my standing there, my waiting at his door, the words from Mrs. McGuire. Why would he believe me?

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Sorry this chapter was so bad and so incredibly short. It's actually the shortest chapter I've ever written. I had to rewrite it when my computer closed off and didn't auto save, so this all that survived, and this is all the time I'll have to work on it until next Saturday. The first time is always the charm. 


	6. The Pinnacle

so ive recently re-discovered fanfiction and i thought i migth just try to tie this up since the "incomplete" fanfiction thing is just eating away at me.

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Gordo pushed the heavy plexiglass door and sucked in his palm with a deep breath. He could hear screaming at all opposites of the hall, saw an unruly man being strapped to a gurney, and knew that Miranda was somewhere in the midst of all this. He approached the front desk and asked for "Miranda Sanchez." The clerk smiled at the awkward-looking teenager and said, "Uh... let's see... room 217, but she has visitors right now. I'll let you know when they leave." He reflected her smile and sat to the side in a poly-plastic seat.

How did this happen to Miranda? She had done nothing wrong- at least from what he knew. She was just a victim of the same familial hardship. Now she was being...treated for it.

_"What do you mean she's being committed?"_

_"Gordo... I think you should go home," Mrs. Maguire instructed._

_He looked from a shocked and mute Miranda to her steady-eyed mother. "No-"_

_"Gordo, leave!" Mrs. Sanchez shrieked. "Just leave."_

_He looked to his old friend for confirmation. He couldn't leave her._

"Mom, I still can't believe it!" a familiar voice pipped past him. He hadn't seen her in months, but he could never forget the back of her. It had walked passed her much too often. The blonde tresses whipped across her neck as she turned to her mother. "Some people just don't react well to hard times, Lizzie," commented Mrs. Maguire.

"Yeah, you're tellin' me- ripping apart her entire family."

"Hey!" Gordo found himself screaming after them.

Lizzie gasped in surprise and half-suppressed a laugh. "Gordo? What are you doing here?"

"I came to see Miranda, who, by the way, didn't tear her family apart," he defended, rumpling the hair on one side of his head.

"Gordo, Miranda is in an extreme state. You can't really take her word for it," Mrs. Maguire added. Lizzie whispered to her mother and Gordo watched as Mrs. Maguire left the hospital and Lizzie approached him. "Wow... you look different," she said.

"Yeah...so do you."

"You look pretty bad."

"Yeah..." he said, shuffling his feet. "Look, it's not Miranda's fault."

"Well, that's not where the evidence is pointing," Lizzie said with a chuckle.

"What evidence is there?"

"Mrs. Sanchez's word, for one, the broken glass, the missing father. Why are you sticking up for her? You don't even talk anymore. You don't know her!"

"So you think that it's okay for her mother to just ship her off to an asylum?"

"She didn't 'ship her off' Gordo. Miranda needed help."

"No more than you do, Lizzie."

"What's the supposed to mean?"

"You destroyed us, Lizzie. You destroyed me. You left me behind so that you could demean me. You traipse around the neighborhood leaving behind everything you know for everything you want! If this whole thing with Miranda is true, then you and her are the same. She destroyed everything she knew for what she wanted: attention, a mother focused on her, whatever the hell you think is the real deal here! Don't you criticize her!"

"Hey! Can you keep it down? You're not helping!" Yelled an attendant.

Lizzie scoffed again. "Well you know, it's funny that I still don't regret any of it," she hissed. Gordo saw her back again as she left the hospital.

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He tapped on the jarred door with his knuckle. "Hey, can I come in?"

She turned around from her spot on the window's ledge and his heart warmed to see her smile at him. "Sure." When he sat down in an arm chair, she asked, "Where've you been? It's been like a week?"

"It took me a while to find out where they'd taken you. You're not that easy to locate," Gordo said, trying to smile in between words.

"Especially when my family is trying to cover all traces of me," Miranda remarked bitterly, evoking a pause. She moved to edge of the bed to be near him and asked, "Gordo... do you think I'm crazy?"

"What?"

"I didn't make it up, Gordo. She cheated on him and he left because of her. I would never sabotage her health. I never force my father to leave," she justified.

"Miranda, calm down. I believe you," Gordo assured.

"You do?"

He tried not to blush as he nodded. "Yeah, well... we were getting closer and I know how you must feel... well, to some degree." He noticed the look of relief on Miranda's face. "Why would I think that you're crazy?"

"Because everyone else does, Gordo. They treat me like some rash psycho looking for attention. I'm in here with schizophrenics and sociopaths, and my mother is roaming free. There's a girl down the hall who's bulemic. She has new nurses buy her snacks from the vending machines, vomits on her hospital food, and leaves the food for the nurses at the end of the day. In the middle of the week, she came in and switched my plate with hers."

"So I guess it's not as great in here as it looks."

She chuckled, "No, Gord, it sucks."

"Has your mom been to visit you?"

Miranda twisted her mouth. "Yeah. She usually comes everyday with Mrs. Maguire." Gordo turned his face away at the mention. "She pats me on the head and fixes my flowers and sits beside Lizzie's mom who puts words in my mouth and diagnoses me with one thing after another- borderline personality disorder, agrophobia..."

Gordo gawked, "You're on medication?"

"Don't look so horrified. I don't take it."

"Miranda... what are you going to do?"

She sighed, "I don't know, Gordo. Last week, I never saw any of this coming. I just wanted everything to go back to normal. Now I want my father back and revenge on my mother."

"Has your dad been to see you?"

Miranda bit her lip. "Not yet."

"I'm sure he's coming."

"Yeah."

"Really."

"Yeah."

"Really," he asserted, putting his hand on hers.

"Really. Gordo, pity is not a pretty color on you." They smiled and he moved in to hug her.

"Gordo," pronounced a voice from the door.

The two faced it. "Hello, Mrs. Sanchez," Gordo greeted and rose from the chair.

"What are you doing here?" she asked as she replaced Miranda's flowers.

"I just thought Miranda could use some company."

"Oh, well Lizzie was here earlier."

"Yeah, I saw," Gordo mumbled. Miranda's head snapped up. "You saw her?" she asked.

"Uh, well... just for a second. I saw her leave," Gordo answered. Miranda busied herself with the floor tiles at Gordo's reply.

"Well, I'm assuming you're all caught up. Gordo you can home now," Mrs. Sanchez said matter-of-factly.

"Mom-"

"Goodbye, Gordo."

"Mom! Stop it, okay? He's hear to talk to _me_, okay? To visit _me_."

"And what's that supposed to mean, young lady?"

"It means, that you've been plugging for sympathy since Dad left you and I'm sick of it! I'm here because of some sick jealousy you have!"

Her mother was mortified. "What did you say?"

"Please let him stay," Miranda pleaded.

"Not after that outburst," she snipped. "Gordo, may I speak to you out in the hall?" Gordo looked to Miranda as he walked into the corridor with her mother.

"David, I would appreciate it if you stopped visiting Miranda."

"Uh-"

"It's not you. You haven't done anything wrong, but I think Miranda is developing a _liking _toward you, and I would prefer that you didn't invite it."

"But Mrs. Sanchez, Miranda and I are just friends and I think she needs me now. I don't want to leave her."

"Trust me, _Gordo_. She would recover from all of this sooner if you weren't around. I think your presence is only satisfying her need for attention. I'm just thinking of what's best for her."

Gordo took a breath and bit his lip as Mrs. Sanchez closed the door behind her and left him in the hall.

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Gordo paced his room. Was it true? Could Miranda be attracted to him? For so long he had been in love with Lizzie. She was his constant motivation to get up in the morning, to make movies. Now she's in some other realm of existence and he's attracted to Miranda. Was he just switching off? Did he really like her? Did she really like him?

Gordo lay back on his bed and listened to his mother park the car and make her way through the house. He cursed this monotony. He felt like a dependent at home and a background for everyone at school. But with Miranda... he felt like "Gordo" again. Back in the hospital, he had found himself covering up every trace of Lizzie for Miranda. He didn't want her to think that he had any feelings for their old best friend. He just wanted to lie down and laugh with her for as long as she would let him.

He went out his window and climbed down the side and made his way down the block.

"Hey, Matt!" he whispered, throwing pebbles at a window of the Maguire house. "Matt!"

The chopped hair appeared in the window. "Hey, there, Gordo. What do yuh need?"

"Miranda's number at the hospital."

"Uno momento, amigo." Matt retreated inside the house and Gordo waited below. When Matt reappeared, he climbed up the railings of the Maguire house and took the number from Mrs. Maguire's data planner. "Matt, I owe you."

"What's that now? Two?"

"Thanks, man."


	7. A Rubix End

Gordo returned to his room and dialed the hospital a town over. "Hello?" Miranda answered in a small voice he couldn't call her own.

"Miranda."

"Gordo?"

"Yeah. Miranda, I want to help you find your dad."

"What? How?"

"I don't know yet. I...uh... I just want to help you."

"Don't worry about it."

"What? What does that mean?"

"I let her win."

Gordo furrowed his brows and let a silence wedge between them. Then he whispered, "Miranda...no..."

"I'm too tired. Goodnight"

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He returned to the hospital a minute or so later than he had yesterday and approached room 217. A nurse stood in the doorway of the room and smiled at him as she wheeled out her cart. He stuck his head before his body. "Hey," he greeted in a solemn tone he accompanied with a smile. Miranda lay in her bed with her head titled up towards the television. "How are you feeling?" he added when she didn't respond. He sat on the edge of her bed and peered into the stillness of her face. "Miranda?"

She slowly turned her face to his, noticed him, and turned it back. "My mother would kill you if she saw you here."

Gordo furrowed his brows. Is that all she can say?

"Uh... good, I guess. I'm not here to see her." In her silence, he looked around the room, trying to avoid the features that were now peeking out at him. Miranda's brown eyes were large and vacant. He had never seen them like that before- almost as if they couldn't contain anything around her-couldn't contain him. "You're just going to let her win?" he asked, but Miranda wasn't listening.

"And it comes with a glorious gift. Where else could you get this kind of quality for only 9.95?" shrieked the TV.

"Why are you acting like this?" he mumbled. "Miranda look at me. Miranda." He turned her by the chin and saw her swimming in her own pupils.

The same nurse of earlier poked her head into the room with a concerned expression. "I'm sorry she's not herself today. She's just taken some new medication. She'll get used to it in no time."

Gordo looked back at Miranda. He was the background again.

"Order now! Now! Now!"

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Gordo lit a cigarette as he stepped off the bus. "I guess I can stand losing her again..."

He made his way to the beginning of his block but turned off.

"I saw you here." Her face was twisted in her own anguish. Her lips was trembling. "I didn't know what to think." Then she shivered and her eyes snapped open. "Those eyes weighed me down."

He treaded the walk to her house indifferently until he saw the car in the driveway.

As Gordo stood on the edge of the Sanchez property, Henry Sanchez stalked out of the house and got in his car.

"Henry!" Mrs. Sanchez screamed from the doorway as her husband careened down the street."Henry, don't!"

Gordo shuffled down the block, hopefully unseen.

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He laid in his bed every night after that. He didn't make any pre-emptive visits to Matt. He didn't tiptoe around Mrs. Sanchez. He swallowed his feelings and his hopes for heroism, and kept to himself. What could he do? "I want to find your father? What was I thinking?" The constant idealism, the coddling. Miranda didn't need him. He needed her.

For a week, he committed to his old activities: "light" chain-smoking or wee morning hours drunk on the bridge. He thought only about himself and his odors.

"Gordo..."

He turned around to meet the voice that caught him on his morning trudge home.

"Lizzie." She looked angelic. "Ironic," Gordo thought.

"I want to um, apologize," she said, twisting at her manicured fingertips.

His bloodshot eyes crinkled. "Apologize for what?"

"Wait- you don't know?"

He ran a rand through his slick hair and rubbed his nose."Know what, Lizzie?"

"About Miranda."

Gordo was almost thrown off his axis. "What about Miranda?"

She peered at him in disbelief. "What do you mean 'what about Miranda?' The whole town's been talking about it? Jeez Gordo, do you live under a rock?" She croaked on the last comment.

"Lizzie, just tell me!"

"Miranda's mom... She was insane."

"Lizzie, you're not helping."

"She had a disorder- Much...Much, God... I don't know. But she had Miranda committed and medicated to get Mr. Sanchez back. When he found out that she was in the hospital, he came back to town, but he didn't want anything to do with her."

"So he took Miranda out of the hospital?"

"Well... yeah, but... um... Her mom...she... tried to poison her in the hospital."

Gordo felt his heart pound wildly against his chest. "She poisoned Miranda?"

Lizzie looked down uncomfortably. "My mother helped her."

"Oh my God."

"I'm sorry."

He scoffed in his throat. "It's a little too late for that."

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Gordo wheezed at the edge of the Sanchez steps. This was it! He was dissheveled and foul but he was here, and if she had been thinking of him as he had been thinking of her, then it wouldn't matter. She wouldn't care.

He walked to the door and rung the bell. Was Mrs. Sanchez gone by now?

Henry answered the door. "Well hello there, Gordo," Mr. Sanchez said somberly.

"Hi, Mr. Sanchez. Is Miranda here?" Gordo asked eagerly.

"Yeah, she's uh... right in here. I've moved her room downstairs."

"'I,' sir?" He asked as Mr. Sanchez moved aside and let him in.

"The Mrs. and I aren't together anymore."

"Oh."

As he and Mr. Sanchez made their way down the hall, Gordo grew anxious. What would she say when he professed his love to her? Even if she rejected him, it would be okay. She was home now. He had a reason to continue.

"How long will you be?" her father asked.

"Oh... uh... I'm not sure?"

Her father pushed back the door to this new room, bringing Miranda into view.

Gordo pressed his teeth into his lip and suddenly found that there was just not enough air to support him.

She was stone-faced and slack, a victim of brain damage from suffocation.

"No!" It came out in a sob as he found her hand. "Miranda. Oh... God, Miranda..." He shed all of his tears onto her hand as she stared blankly into the ceiling, an utter abyss of solitude.

"Miranda..."


End file.
